


A Dog and his Boy

by greerwatson



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-31
Updated: 2011-10-31
Packaged: 2018-05-20 09:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6000853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greerwatson/pseuds/greerwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after Dunkirk, Laurie's mother feels mingled relief and worry when she learns that he is in hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dog and his Boy

**Author's Note:**

> “A Dog and his Boy” was written for the 2011 Spooky Challenge on the [maryrenaultfics](http://maryrenaultfics.livejournal.com/) LiveJournal community to the prompt, “unquiet dark”.

Gyp was barking again.  She gave a quick nervous glance up at Mr Straike, who had—so _kindly_ —walked her home when she’d run into him in the street after leaving the tea shop.  His face was quite expressionless.  Oh, dear!  Really, Gyp’s behaviour was getting quite unreasonable.  It was not, after all, the first time the vicar had walked her home.  (She felt a delightful glow.) 

When the Straikes had first come to the parish, she had taken pains to introduce them to the Airedale, as she did with all her friends.  The late Mrs Straike had been wary:  she was allergic to dog fur, she explained, and thereafter rarely called at the house.  However, her husband was clearly a man accustomed to deal with dogs—as one might expect, given his need to visit so many parishioners who owned them.  He had reached out his hand, and Gyp had sniffed it (a little suspiciously, to be sure, but it was not a bad sign for a dog to be watchful of who came to the house he guarded).  Nevertheless, despite the introduction, the next time the vicar dropped by, the dog had barked again, just as loud.  This time, with a little apologetic smile for the familiarity, she had patted Mr Straike’s sleeve and said, “Good Mr Straike, _nice_ Mr Straike,” feeling rather foolish.  But he had smiled understandingly, and told her that he had always had a fondness for dogs, and would have liked to keep one.  A spaniel, probably:  he had had a dear old springer when he was a boy.

Just _why_ Gyp had taken such a dislike to the vicar she could not imagine.  The village was so very lucky to have him.  A more estimable man would be hard to find; and everyone commiserated when his wife died.  She only wished Laurie could meet him.  She only wished....

Firmly, she stifled the end of that thought, thanked Mr Straike for his company, and let herself into the cottage.  After she quieted the dog, she went through to the kitchen and put on the kettle.  Yes, it was true that she had just had tea and scones with Mrs Russell; yes, it was extravagant to use her precious tea leaves, sugar, and milk.  Nevertheless....   _The cup that cheers yet does not inebriate,_ indeed!  Right now, she felt in urgent need of cheer.

Only last week she had essayed the trip to Bridstow on the train, with its delays of wartime, and then taken the bus along the winding country roads out to the hospital.  Laurie had been so weak and so wan, his lids heavy with the exhaustion of pain.  (She knew the signs from the First War.)  He had tried to sit up, jarred his leg somehow, and blanched as she would not have thought possible for one so pale.  Yet he had not made a sound—her brave boy!—but murmured something that she could not quite catch, but could tell, from the twist of his lips, had been intended as humour.

At best, she feared, Laurie would lose his leg:  there was infection, and it might spread.  The doctor at the hospital had been guarded; and she knew what that meant.  If the infection spread....  So many had died in the Great War, even after being brought alive from the battlefield. 

She watched, unseeing, as the kettle came to the boil.  Automatically, she filled the smaller teapot.  In its depths, the tea steeped to potability. 

It was hard to believe now just how desperately relieved she had been when the telegram arrived.   _(He was alive!)_  The news from Dunkirk had been so bad, despite the efforts of the cockleshell heroes.   _Her Laurie was alive_ ; and all was right with her world, even though Hitler had taken Europe with his blitzkrieg.

Now bombs fell in the south—might fall on the hospital, might fall on Laurie ... and _that_ was if he lived!

She drank her tea.

As she took the cup into the scullery, she was accosted by Gyp.  He pawed at her skirt and whined; and she sighed.  He wanted out.  At his age, this couldn’t wait, or there would be a mess on the floor.

She was tempted just to open the back door and let him run.  He would take to the woods, alone without his boy ( _her_ boy); and he might not be back for hours.  He was an old dog; but he still had the habit of roaming.

No.  She couldn’t face it.  He would come home with knots in his fur and mud on his paws, stinking of some refuse in which he had rolled.  He would come home, some time after dark (and dark was late this time of year), and she would have to cope with the dirt and pick off ticks, and just before bed.

With a sigh, she fetched his leash and clipped it on as he wriggled in his eagerness.  (Once, he and Laurie would have burst running out the door, and flung themselves along the lane, the dog keeping pace beside his master, until they’d worn off their ebullience and come hungry home to tea.)

Woman and dog walked along the lane, her heels tapping on the old cobbles, his paws wandering as the scents came.  She unwound him when their paths parted round the pillar box, and waited at the tree. 

At the crossroads she paused.  Gyp would probably prefer it if they turned left, towards the end of the village.  She could let him off the leash for a while and let him run:  he usually came when she called.  Her yearning, though, led the other way.  She turned her head, and saw—beyond the thatch of the Howletts’ cottage and the tiled roof of the shop round the bend—the little spire of their church rising above the yews.

She could not, of course, take a dog into church.  The leash had a fair length to it, though; and she tied it to the railings and bade Gyp behave.  Pushing open the door, she went up the aisle to her usual pew and sat down.

It was cool inside.  Cool and grey, except for the dark old polished wood of the pews, and the pulpit and rood screen.  There was little glass, except for the Christ in glory in the chancel; and that was Victorian.  The old vicar’s pride had been the thirteenth century font.  (History had not, somehow, come up in her conversations with Mr Straike.)

She bent her head.   _Oh Lord save my Laurie,_ she prayed.   _Save his life, and save his leg.  Bring him home to me._

She lost herself in hopeless longing for the sweet, safe years of Laurie’s youth, when she had lost him only to school, and not to war (and not, _please, God,_ to death); and could look forward to Parents’ Day, and end of term, and the happy weeks of holidays.

Outside, the light grew golden; inside, the shadows deepened.

Her reverie was broken by sudden, loud, peremptory barking.  She started, only realizing from the gloom how long she must have been sitting; and tried to get up, and found herself cramped and chill.  She heaved herself clumsily to her feet with a hand on the pew in front.  The door opened, and Mr Straike came in.  The barking outside continued, louder through the open door. 

“Oh, dear,” she said.  “Oh, I am _so_ sorry.”

“No, no, that’s quite all right.”  He shut the door on the noise.

“Were you wanting to lock up for the night?”

“I saw the dog, and wondered if there was anything wrong.  Some bad news?  You did not mention anything earlier....”

“Oh, no!”  Lucy looked flustered.  “Just the visit last week ... I told you about it ... poor Laurie, I was so _worried_ about him.  I just wanted ... I needed....”

“To bring your worries to the Lord,” Mr Straike put in.  “Yes, yes, I quite understand.  I can only hope that the peace of our church has been a help to you.”

“Oh, yes!” she said.

He came closer.  “It’s nearly twilight, Mrs Odell.  It must be quite chill in here; and I see you did not bring a sweater.  May I offer you my jacket?”

There were goosebumps on her arms.  She did not quite like to say yes (though, of course, he _was_ the vicar, and naturally concerned for her welfare); but, in truth, she was noticing just how uncomfortable she was.

“I think perhaps I’ll just go home,” she said politely, “but I do appreciate the offer.  I should have brought a cardigan if I’d intended to stay so long.  It was an impulse,” she added, “when I saw the church.”

“And a most appropriate impulse, too, may I say?” he said.  “The church is always open for you.”

He escorted her to the door, and showed her out.  At the sight of the two of them together, Gyp yanked forward in fervent barking.  She untied him, fearful that he might tear the leash from her hand and jump at Mr Straike; but the dog simply put himself between her and the vicar, his bark turning to growl as the man moved a shade too close.

“I should walk you home,” he began, with an eye on Gyp.  He did not look at all afraid, but clearly one could not _like_ the dog’s response.

“No, no.  It’s not far, after all,” she reassured him.  She set off, aware that, behind her, he was taking the key from his pocket and locking the church door.  He would then walk across to the vicarage.  Still, when she turned her head as she reached the bend in the road, she found that he was still standing inside the gate.  Aware that he was looking along in her direction, she found herself pinkly warm. 

It was Mrs Timmings’ day off, which meant a cold supper.  She fed Gyp, and set a single place at the table, and ate in solitary state ... at least until the dog came in to beg scraps.  He was not to be fed at meals; but she slipped him the end of fat from the slice of cold pork when she took her plate to the scullery.

After the news on the radio, she went up to bed, latching her door against a wet nose in the night, before changing to her nightgown.  Only once the light was out did she pull back the blackout curtain and open the window.  A warm little breeze stole in, and the leaves rustled on the old apple tree.  She slipped into bed, sure that she would fall asleep quickly.  Yet she lay for a long time. 

_Oh, Laurie_ , she thought.  She had spent so many months of so many years without her son at home; yet he had always been out there in the big world, to return at the proper time.  The silent house rang with his laughter; she could hear the clatter of his shoes; she ached for the eager tales of school, the stories at bedtime, the little boy who needed a nightlight to get to sleep.

The blackout was open:  there could be no nightlight for her, except the moon. 

Downstairs, Gyp padded across the floor.  She could hear his nails scratching on the stairs, and then the soft whine at the door.   _If Laurie dies,_ she thought, _if Laurie dies...._  She turned her head and looked out the window at the unquiet dark.   _Oh, what on earth am I going to do with Gyp?_


End file.
